The Great Charleston Fire of 1861

So in searching the net about Charleston, South Carolina during the Civil War, I was surprised to learn that in December of 1861 there was a great fire that destroyed a 1/3 of the city.  Monuments, landmarks, and historical colonial homes were burned, and thousands left homeless.    Here are some links with information on this event.


The Post and Courier-Charleston at War: Charleston Beaten Down by Great Fire

Smithsonian Magazine.com-The Destruction of Charleston in the Civil War

The Civil War Gazette has an actual article from Harper's Weekly

Seven Score and Ten Year Ago-December 12th, 1861

Gone with the Wind and Astrology

Astrology is one of my hobbies, and I like to speculate on what the natal charts of each character would be.  There are several articles on the internet that mention Margaret Mitchell had an interest in astrology, and that the characters in GWTW are based on the 12 Zodiac signs.  The only birthday of a character known for sure is Beau Wilkes.  He would've been a triple Virgo (sun/moon/rising).  Here are some articles/posts on that subject.

Gone with the Wind: The Zodical Parade by Alex Trenowith

Gone with the Wind is a thinly disguised astrological allegory. . .urban legend or fact?

Rhett Butler. . .

Found this blog, The Death of Rhett Butler, that is a rebuttal of Gone with the Wind, written from Rhett's wards perspective.  Just thought I'd share.

Nursing. . .

Victorian Breastfeeding- I always assumed Scarlett nursed all her children.  Here are pictures of women nursing their children and how it was a measure of a woman's worth and maternal ability to nurse.

The article links to this pinterest page, which has more images from a variety of time periods.

Civil War Era Fashions. . .

Found these on pinterest and thought I'd share.  I could see Scarlett wearing some of the green ones.

ACW Dresses-this board shows more details of each dress.

Heather Sheen-a board full of Civil War fashions and information from a re-enactor.

1860-1865 Day Dresses-lots of old photographs.

Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel

A PBS American Masters Margaret Mitchell: American Rebel is about an hour long overview of her life, writing Gone With The Wind, and her life after publication.   This should link to the web video you can watch.   Some is information covered by others, the most interesting part was her support of Morehouse College and the building of the first African-American Hospital in Atlanta.

Family and Friends

As I am going through doing the timeline, I am wondering if having a list of family and friends might be helpful for future fanfic ideas.  Yea or Nay?

Book Covers. . .

My mom started reading Gone With The Wind to me in 1978 or 1979.  She had a book club reissue from the early 1970s.  I still have the book.  It is missing the spine, falling out in chunks, has coffee or tea stains on the edge of some pages, and is currently stuffed full of odd bits of paper to mark points of the book I am listing in the timeline.  The dust jacket looked like this.  I think perhaps my mom might still have the original dust jacket, because she took it off the book at some point.  This is the book I am using for the timeline quotes and page numbers.

My mom's boyfriend around that time gave me his copy of Gone With The Wind, which was the paperback move tie-in edition.  I remember looking at the color plate pictures from the film, Scarlett in the BBQ dress, etc. and making up little stories about the people based on them.  This was before my mom started reading me the book.  Another book I read till it fell apart, and was mask taped back together.  I made the mistake of storing it in a filing cabinet in the basement of one house where between the moisture and mice, the demolition of the book was completed.  It was a really cool edition, with beautiful color plates from the film.

  

Later, I can't recall if I purchased this or if it was a gift, I acquired the Complete and Unabridged Gone With The Wind, which was a movie tie-in, but in hardback and with a different cover, but all the glorious plates still in it.  This one has a Publisher's Preface, along with the credits from the opening of the film.  I don't recall if those were in the paperback edition.  

I purchased the 75th Anniversary edition in hardback.  The interesting thing is there are more pages in the Anniversary edition, then in my mom's book club edition.  Wonder if they increased the font size?  Not the most exciting of covers, but probably closer to the original book jacket.

So when did you first read Gone With The Wind?  Which copy or edition do you all own?  Do you have a favorite dust jacket or cover?

Time Line of-events, historical, emotional, and otherwise.

So once I stumbled across a Gone With The Wind Timeline by Princess Alicia on fanfic.  I thought it was pretty cool, but lacked some of what I wanted to see in a time line.  So I "borrowed" her idea, and am in the process of creating one.  I am hoping to nail down exact dates, and will focus on some of the more minor characters, who really add to the story.  Some entries will be in a couple of sentences, some a list, and some might contain quotes, that I feel add to the story or mark an important turning point.  Since I am not constrained by Fanfic, I can link to sites on Civil War history I used for verification.  The page should be up by the end of June at the latest.  Please feel free to let me know if I missed something significant.

Welcome to a blog about Gone with the Wind, Fanfic, and Writing. . .

Hello All-

I couldn't get the hang of google groups and it was too dull and boring, so viola, a blog.  We shall all have author privileges to post what we want.